Christoph Steinert holds an MPhil from the University of Oxford and a PhD from the University of Mannheim. His doctoral dissertation, "An Empirical and Conceptual Study of Political Imprisonment", provides novel insights into the determinants and consequences of political imprisonment in authoritarian regimes. After completing his PhD, Christoph was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Mannheim and the University of St. Gallen, and he worked part-time as an evaluator for the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval). In July 2024, Christoph joined the University of Zurich as an SNF-Postdoctoral Fellow at the Chair of International Relations. His SNF-postdoctoral fellowship project focuses on the human rights complaint mechanisms of the United Nations. The research project sheds light on the determinants and consequences of filing human rights complaints with the United Nations. In particular, the research project seeks to explain what types of individuals file such complaints, the extent to which states are responsive to these complaints, and when states retaliate against individuals and civil society organizations that file complaints with the United Nations. In addition to this fellowship research project, Christoph is involved in several other research projects on international organizations, human rights norms, state repression, and artificial intelligence. Christoph's research has been published in the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Studies Quarterly, and the Review of International Organizations, among others, and has been awarded the NEPS Peace Medal, the Will H. Moore Prize of the Peace Science Society, and the Glenn Palmer Prize. Christoph is also active as a policy fellow for the Foraus foreign policy think tank.